The Library - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone. My name is Alan Sass. I'm the CEO of x. (x=doesn't really matter in this equation, but we're a startup that's a couple years old). I'd like to create something new, simply called "The Library".
Our team and I spend our days figuring out new ways of solving problems, with our day-to-day responsibilities consisting of performing product research+distribution for tangible products. We love technology and want to continually learn more about it so here we are today. Spending time today with my family, and thinking of how to structure this post to Hacker News, a site that I visit multiple times daily seemed like a great way to spend the day.
Recently, our team realized that we needed to open up the possibilities and think of topics that we don't yet fully understand and explore certain subjects that are unknown (to each of us, at the current moment). Multiple team members are partnering up more and more lately to learn and work on building new things together, which has sped up the learning curve for everyone, and has also been very fun at the same time.
Naturally, I started browsing Google+Amazon for ideas, and then started thinking of the problem from the perspective that we have the opportunity to create something new. The something new is a network with new distribution channels that might not have existed before today.
I'm a huge believer in combinatorial innovation, by combining two technologies that did not previously exist together before to create something new. There's that magical, unique moment that happens only once when you create something new, with the real joy in creation is watching an idea perpetuate over a long time horizon and allowing people to experience things and situations that they never believed that could/would have happened to them before.
(1 of 5 - continued below) <comment><AUTHOR> (4 of 5)

If anyone is interested in sharing any ideas for new books to add, donating any books, or helping in any other way, please feel free to contact us as we'd love to hear from you. We're really just trying to build a massive library at our office (or future new location), and my entire personal book collection will be transferred to this to help speed up the process of creating a large list as fast as possible, to help the network grow. The list is only a few days old (and most of it hasn't even arrived from Amazon yet!)

Our current heuristics for purchasing new books:

Think of Subject (Google+Amazon+Wiki+?) -> Search for 3-10 highest reviewed books (Amazon) -> Purchase ($!) -> Add to Master List (Google Sheets) -> Aggregate Tons of Data (Amazon+Google+?) -> Continue Building List of Books (Referrals+Search+Reviews) -> Perform Tons of Regression Analysis to Learn (?!#?!) -> Figure out all steps for Data/Sheet to update in Real-Time (this is the largest unknown variable in the equation, and we need to get to this point as fast as possible to properly scale the idea)

We've self funded the books that are on the current list over the last few days, by purchasing them on Amazon, and we have 500-1000 more unique titles to add in the coming week, so I hope that this is a start to something great. Please let me/us know if there's anything we could do to improve. Thank you for your time reading this.

(continued below)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> (3 of 5)

Our current business allows us the flexibility to easily ship things (at least nationally!), so today I'd love to start an additional experiment where anyone in the US (all 50 states - need to limit exposure first, sorry!) can borrow any of the books listed on the sheet, free of charge. We'll keep track of updates for rentals+returns as time goes on, but we truly believe that we needed to continually invest more and more in the future for both our team, and our company, first by allocating capital to this idea, and then allowing it time to grow on it's own. If this project and/or experiment(s) are a failure, then the worst case scenario is we have lots of interesting books to read, that lots of people would be happy taking home, so all would not be lost.

We can't promise anything at this point other than what we just shared with everyone. We would very much appreciate any help or ideas that anyone might have to help us move forward, or could help with what we're trying to accomplish. We'll continually re-evaluate the future, based on the variables that we currently have, and then re-adjust accordingly, but this offer is available until I/we state otherwise.

The technology for what we're trying to accomplish is still very basic, and I'd love to see it continually improve with time, to remove any friction in the process. We see no end to our investment in books, or the future, so unless this gets too huge, then we're fine. But if it does get huge, then that just presents other opportunities (assuming we could fund it until that point!).

(continued below)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> (2 of 5)

I love discussing new books and subjects with my family/friends/team, and always look forward to any opportunity for that situation to present itself, but I believe that something or someone has to change our current position(s) to allow the situation to better present itself to each party. Then I started thinking of an offer/accept based tech system that might be able to help align many people's interests. We're not sure if the idea currently exists in this current form but we also like fun experiments.

My initial intention with creating "The Library" would be to create a new network to help create/maintain connections between people that might not have existed before. By creating it, I would start the process by purchasing a list of books that are interesting to me, and hopefully people that I know. Everyone has their own unique interest in books, and so as a collective group, I would hope to eventually have a very diverse range of book subjects. Creating and maintaining a large list of books will (hopefully) naturally help our organization grow into what we want for the future, and continually bring up the standards of learning for those involved.

Within the last few days of sharing this sheet with some of my past/current friends, we've had many more enjoyable interactions and conversations that might not have previously happened, without this. I hope that result would present itself for future relationships that don't yet exist. That's one of the reasons that I'm sharing our idea here today, to solicit any feedback, both negative+positive, with the hopes of building a new network that many people would eventually want to be a part of. I'm very thankful for this site to be around so maybe this could be a way for us to help in return.

(continued below)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> (5 of 5)

"Don't focus on the idea. Just start building what you believe is true and share it with the world." "If you're not embarrassed by your product release, then you've released too late."

The Library - List of Books (Google Sheets - Public URL) [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pLQ86vv4u0Mutcob6K24...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pLQ86vv4u0Mutcob6K245aNcKEnJ3yNuvUQ5kLCGeDY/edit?usp=sharing)

TO REQUEST/RENT/BORROW A BOOK: Please send me/us a private message on this forum (Hacker News), and include whatever information you're comfortable sharing with me/us, and we'll send the book to you this week.

We're not sure if we're offering return postage yet, but we'll guarantee any initial postage for outbound shipments and hope that people return the books to us. Since this is new to us, we're hoping that by offering this to the Y Combinator community, that we could at least have some past member history as an initial data point to start learning from.

We will not share your information with anyone. This is not a joke post. Please, limit one (1) book per member+household, at least initially. These rules could change at any time.

The most basic details that we need to send you a book are:

Book Title: Address Information: (name not required) Expected Return Date:

You may keep the book for up to 90 days, but we please ask that you think of other people and return the book when possible so other people can also borrow it. If everyone chooses 90 days, then we may lower the maximum number of rental days in the future. If the book that you request is currently out of stock, then we'll add your name to the reservation list, and send the book to you once we receive it in return.

If you would like to review the book after you return it then it would be much appreciated, but completely optional. We plan on adding different metrics of reviewing the best books to read, based on past data, but that's in the future.

Thank you again.

Moderators: If these posts are not allowed, please let us know and/or take them down.

<comment><USER2> _" Please send me/us a private message on this forum (Hacker News), and include whatever information you're comfortable sharing with me/us, and we'll send the book to you this week."_

Hacker News doesn't have a facility for private messages. If you want to receive replies, you'll need to put your e-mail address in your profile. Note that the "email" field in your profile is not publicly visible, so if you want people to see your e-mail address it needs to go in the "about" box.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you! just updated it. any random problem we could try to research and help solve with you?</comment></comment></comment>


Military uniforms – Expense and stupidity too big to camouflage - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21600700-expense-and-stupidity-too-big-camouflage-out-sight <comment><USER2> This is the "it doesn't matter if it actually works" factor rather than the "CDI" factor.

America is not fighting a war of national survival on a limited budget. It's fighting some wars of choice and maintaining a defence procurement industry on a seemingly unlimited budget. There is no way even the total failure of the war will personally affect the people doing the producement, and there is no need for them to economise because they can't run out of other people's money.

So, everyone involved is free to have endless meetings. Senior management can commission studies at great expense then ignore the result on a whim. They can engage in turf wars and internal empire building; after all, the real enemy is the people you're competing with for promotions.

The procurements that _have_ been successful are mostly those resulting from urgent operational requirements, when losing to insurgents with a tiny budget became embarrassing.

(The UK is not immune to this; we've built an aircraft carrier that's supposed to use the F-35, which may not be available and we can't really afford)

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure what this comment is supposed to say. The article submitted here is pretty weak, but the operational issues about the subject were quite real and genuine problems in the "field".

That has largeley been solved with the adoption of a new series based on improved color-temperature of background tones--something overlooked when all the focus was on the _patterns_.

The deployment of coyete in lieu of green/olive and the current multi-cam is pretty good stuff. The problem with marpat and some of the other ACU stuff was that the color temps (ie, too much blue-ish undertones in a desert) can make you stick out more than having the wrong pattern.

This was a problem that resulted from trying to have a rural/urban combination that would work for troops fighting terrorist cells in cities and not just in classical land-warfare scenarios in open-country.

You can read some more background here:

[http://www.military.com/daily-news/2012/06/28/army-to- recomm...](http://www.military.com/daily-news/2012/06/28/army-to-recommend- multicam-for-entire-force.html)

And if you dig it up you can find the comparison field tests that illustrated the weaknesses in the field of the earlier designs.

<comment><USER2> My comment was about the political and economic process that produced the choice of uniform, not the uniform itself. Of course the problems were genuine. What I am saying is that it's very likely that the problems could have been spotted and worked out before billions were spent, because the institutional culture is not good at spotting problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> People are scathing about the USMC's desire to look distinctive, and about senior officers' desire for soldiers to look good.

Obviously fashion shouldn't trump everything, but looking and feeling the part is a considerable part of the moral component of fighting power. I think denying that is denying some basic human psychology. Why do armies spend money on flags, dress uniforms, buglers, horses, mascot dogs, medals, bands and so on? It's because the ethos they create is a seriously important part of building a group of men who can operate together in extreme situations.

The USMC and other branches are worried about how their uniforms look and how distinctive they are because it's one essential part of preparing to fight a war.

<comment><USER5> Looking good is what dress uniforms are for in a fight you are concerned about other things than the CDI (chicks dig it) factor.

<comment><USER4> My experience was that my soldiers took a huge amount of pride in looking like a British Army soldier from their particular capbadge - especially in an operational environment. Part of my unit's cohesion and pride when operating in joint environments was being smart in their own particular unique way.

That pride and attention to detail then carries over into their fieldcraft and tactics.

Young men don't fight for the Ministry of Defence, they fight for their regiment and their mates - a group created by looking and acting just a little bit differently to other people.

<comment><USER6> The US Military, surprisingly, survived for years with everyone wearing the same combat uniform (BDUs).

<comment><USER7> Yeah, but that was before 9/11, and since then we've won so cle--oh. Well fuck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Navy's camo looks bizarre (it doesn't blend with trees, ships, or office equipment), but turns out it's main purpose is to hide the stains that a sailor picks up during their duty day, from oil & grease to paint drips. So as a duty uniform, it succeeds.

The Air Force camo was introduced as a pure ego move. It doesn't blend, oil & hydraulic stains can't be wiped off the boots, and it's too hot. And unlike the green polyester duty uniforms of the 70's & 80's you can't shorten or roll-up the sleeves.

My understand why they don't all buy the multi-cam is that the design is copyrighted and the DoD and the owner couldn't come to an agreement on the licensing fees.

<comment><USER9> According to Caleb Crye the DoD reps just didn't want to come to an agreement: [http://soldiersystems.net/2014/03/18/ssd-exclusive-crye- prec...](http://soldiersystems.net/2014/03/18/ssd-exclusive-crye-precision- speaks-regarding-us-army-efforts-adopt-new-camouflage/)

tl;dr:

> Continuing its efforts to reduce costs to the Army and in an attempt to > eliminate the Army's concerns that MultiCam® was more expensive than UCP, > Crye submitted several formal proposals which proved that the Army could > procure MultiCam® gear at prices within 1% of UCP gear. Crye's proposals > additionally showed that this could be accomplished with no upfront cost to > the Army.

> The Army rejected all of Crye's proposals and did not present any counter > proposals, effectively saying that a proven increase in Soldier > survivability was not worth a price difference of less than 1%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nope, they are dead wrong. I was in the Army during both Bush maladministrations, and the Marines doing their own thing was one of the proximate causes of the horrible Army ACU (as well as the weird Air Force and Navy blueish camo thingeys). From what I remember the Marines (RAWR, because they are MARINES, TOUGH!) didn't want their camo licensed out to the other branches, so the everyone went their own way. How is this cost effective? It certainly makes getting uniform apparel that much harder on joint bases (where they have to stock everything, like the Presidio of Monterey), or isolated people in Guard/Reserve units, whose nearest active duty installation may not be in their branch.

<comment><USER10> I believe the Marines are also responsible for ruining the F-35 to the tune of $1 trillion over the lifetime of the plane.

> The Pentagon intends to spend roughly $399 billion to develop and buy 2,443 > of the planes. However, over the course of the aircrafts' lifetimes, > operating costs are expected to exceed $1 trillion. Lockheed has carefully > hired suppliers and subcontractors in almost every state to ensure that > virtually all senators and members of Congress have a stake in keeping the > program -- and the jobs it has created -- in place.

The Marines wanted VTOL and that made the plane worse in every other way.

<comment><USER6> The Marines have a mindset that they are SPECIAL. I mean that in a serious way, despite the Marines rarely doing anything that's not also done by the Army. It'd make more sense for Marine air units to fly off of Navy carriers, rather than waste money on a VTOL version of the F-35.

<comment><USER11> A Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) is not supported by Navy aircraft carriers (see Marine Expeditionary Unit). A MAGTF is supported by Navy Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) class ships that require VTOL capable aircraft. The AV8-B Harrier is the current aircraft that fits this role, which the F-35 is meant to replace.

<comment><USER12> +1 correct. A carrier battle group can't be everywhere, and the immense operational options available to a VTOL contingent make the program viable. I'm a former Navy pilot, and agree that VTOL gets the job done in many tight situations.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, if all 10 super carriers are tied up, I'm sure we'll have plenty of resources to keep those hundred million dollar planes ready to rock.

I realize sarcasm is a poor excuse for humor, but if all ten are unavailable (because of shooting and getting shot at), i think we (the US) would have a pretty rough time getting those planes working.

If their not available because of non-war reasons, it seems like the mission isn't really that big of a deal anyway.

I sort of think the US goes for the Cadillac solution for everything. Perhaps that's my bias because i only hear about the expensive stuff. I'd sort of expect there to be a nice gradient between really super high tech, down to cheap simple and reliable. But whatever, armchair quarterback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Cached version, without login wall: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SZQxqxt...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SZQxqxtz9aIJ:www.economist.com/news/united- states/21600700-expense-and-stupidity-too-big-camouflage-out-sight)

<comment><USER15> I wonder who upvoted this?

Are there really 53 hackers paying economist.com to read it?

" You have reached your article limit Register to continue reading or subscribe for unlimited access "

<comment><USER16> A useful trick is to google for the article titles; it seems like paywalls tend to not pop up when google is in the referer header.

<comment><USER17> my go to is: right click link -> "open in incognito window"

for chrome at least. Firefox has similar functionality, though I'm not sure if it can be accessed from a right-click.

<comment><USER18> It does, "Open Link in New Private Window" via right-click.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As a military member who has worn three separate uniform implementations over the past 10+ years I can tell you that no-one who is serving thinks the changes are anything but silly.

Everyone I knew thought that the introduction of multicam in AFG was a great jumping off point for all the services to share a uniform - but of course that will never happen with all the GO level pissing matches that happen.

</comment><comment><USER20> This has pictures of the described patterns: [http://camopedia.org/index.php?title=USA](http://camopedia.org/index.php?title=USA)

</comment><comment><USER21> This rivalry between branches is probably the leading cause to the excessive military budgets the US has. Between the boondoggle that is the F35; the rivalry amongst the branches they would not compromise on a design so it had to do it all; to the ludicrous idea that super carriers have survivability in a world of submarines and drones.

By being separate it introduces coordination problems, results in duplicated systems, and an all around pissing contest.

Give them all one uniform, one set of regulations, and one source of funding. Then retire off all the desk jockey O-6 and and above who simply serve no purpose but to manage an acronym

<comment><USER22> > to the ludicrous idea that super carriers have survivability in a world of > submarines and drones.

Can you expand on that? Super carriers seem to be a central part of our ability to exert influence globally. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

<comment><USER23> In an infamous 2002 wargame, an American carrier and much of its fleet were destroyed by swarms of speedboats with missiles, simulating potential Iranian tactics.

Also, anti-ship ballistic missiles keep getting better. It's not clear whether the US Navy could stop the latest generation of Chinese anti-ship missiles.

In both cases, a supercarrier suffers a serious probabilistic problem: the attackers only have to get through once. The defenders need to be 100% effective. That's not realistic in a world where it's economically feasible to field thousands of cheap drones.

<comment><USER24> Cheap drones have small payloads, and one small payload won't do disastrous damage to a carrier. The attackers have to get through once with a serious weapon, or many times with small, cheap weapons.

Is there a small, cheap weapon that is nasty enough, without relying on crazy luck? Do carriers have known vulnerabilities to small weapons, as in Star Wars Ep. IV?

Edit: Just read up on USS Cole, and a small boat made a 40ft hole in the side, killed 17 and injured 39 sailors. Very serious. Is this enough to disable a carrier? Also, small boats have enormously more payload than a drone. Wikipedia says an attack on USS Sullivan failed when the overloaded attack boat sank, so clearly they are using all that capacity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> To get beyond the paywall try this search link to google: [https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Out+of+sight+the+econom...](https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Out+of+sight+the+economist)

EDIT: This one might be slightly better: [https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=military+uniforms+out+o...](https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=military+uniforms+out+of+sight+the+economist)

<comment><USER26> right click, open in incognito also works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Advances in computerized image processing and on-demand fabric printing have not only made camouflage patterns obsolete, but also the entire concept of choosing a camouflage pattern for all military uniforms worldwide.

What quartermasters need is a machine that will take photographs of the local terrain as input, calculate a camouflage pattern from them, and print that pattern on unmarked uniforms. The result would be matched only by a ghillie suit, which takes actual landscape features and physically attaches them to the fabric.

Such a machine would be rejected any day of the week by a council of colonels during peacetime. During actual wartime, captains will somehow fail to notice uniform violations where the approved patterns have been defaced by the very same equipment that civilian hunters had already been using for years on the canvas for their tree stands and duck blinds.

Beware the military-industrial complex indeed. I'd say the sector was ripe for disruption, but disruptors will be shot on sight.

If you want to get the military to buy something that actually _works_ , you have to market it to civilian outdoorsmen and make it commercial off-the-shelf technology. Some soldiers will use it while off duty or after their service contracts expire, and if you get very lucky with the good ol' boy network, someone will quietly process regular small procurements to ensure that you will not go out of business before you get the chance to save America from a land invasion by the Commie Fascist Nation of Scary Bogeymen.

There has always been a huge gulf between wartime military development and peacetime research. Peacetime always produces stuff that looks cool while doing absolutely everything that needed to be done for the _last_ war, plus a boatload of things that might have been useful if _that_ war had dragged on long enough. Wartime development produces stuff that is cheap, ugly, and works well for the _current_ war.

That's how a soldier's kit can end up with silly string from a toy store or laser levels from a hardware store. By the time the army starts issuing that stuff to its units, the enemy had already stopped using tripwires to trigger booby traps. They switched to non-metallic pressure plates that use the physical movement of reactants to detonate an explosive. And so maybe someone breeds special houseflies to be attracted to the detonator chemicals, and then some poor grunt is stuck feeding the bomb-detector maggots in camp.

And you just have to hope the war doesn't end right there, because then that guy will be a professional maggot wrangler for the next 20 years, training flies to do everything from finding terrorists in truck stops to landing only on the poop from generals and admirals.

The inefficiency is built into the system. You absolutely cannot fix it from where you are sitting. You can consider it a form of welfare for veterans, like VA health care, except with fewer suicides. It would be extremely embarrassing for the military to have to admit that they make _some_ people _less_ qualified to hold jobs in the public sector. Whether that is due to the brain damage caused by explosive shockwaves passing through the skull or the brain damage caused by filling out reams of pointless bureaucratic paperwork is immaterial. As long as stories about neglected veterans hit the news, discharged folks will need to be put into safe jobs. And that is how military contracts go billions over budget. That is why none of this crap ever works until after the war actually starts.

</comment><comment><USER28> hate paywalled articles posted here.

<comment><USER26> Given that a large percentage of the mainstream media is moving towards X articles/month free, register to get Y articles/month free, pay to get full access, you're basically asking that no main stream media links get posted here.

That pretty much guarantees that the only posts we'll see are from the tech bubble, and one I'd like to avoid.

As long as the workaround is as simple as it is here (right click, open in incognito), I don't think we should avoid posting articles from the Economist or other mainstream media sites here.

<comment><USER28> Sorry, I didn't ask "that no main stream media links get posted here." \- I just didn't want to register.

In any case, I'm here for discovering non-mainstream-media news.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't understand why I had to put my browser into porn mode to read this.

</comment><comment><USER30> I see a lot of figures in the "millions"

Pfft! That's like me buying an ice cream at McDonalds with the change I find in the little cup holder of my car.

Wait! It also says 4b to replace all the "flawed" stuff. Hmmm, let me think: that like a small family dinner.

In the overall scheme of things, this is nothing.

<comment><USER31> Few billion here, few billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money.

<comment><USER30> With government, the problem is that "here" is very different from "there."

Which is why we _really_ want the federal government to be _really small_ or things like these happen.

<comment><USER32> "really small" won't fix "really corrupt" \- how things are now, the first to go would be things such as laws keeping businesses honest.

<comment><USER33> "really small" means limiting power which reduces the effects of corruption.

<comment><USER32> no. because with "really small" governments you still get "really big" companies. The term "deregulation" really epitomizes this - the idea that there should be fewer laws restricting companies from harming others and that the magical free hand of the market will miraculously prevent malfeasance and malevolent profiteering in some ayn rand utopia. what a lovely fantasy.

The process I've seen called "decivilizing" \- the willful dismantling of the post-industrial societal state back to some goal that is effectively an 18th century corporate oligarchy.

The problem is that then you get companies which effect as governments - it's no mistake that the US flag is a spinoff of the maritime flag of the East India Trading corporation - it was effectively a de facto governing body - above the state.

The corporate becomes the state when the state is weak. They are poised to fill such a power vacuum and it happens immediately.

It's so clear.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


US airlines are still flying over warzones - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/238809/us-airlines-are-still-flying-over-these-war-zones/

<comment><USER2> Pretty misleading title. Yes, commercial and private planes have been shot down in the past. Yes, American commercial planes still fly through airspace where there is fighting on the ground. No, most of these places do not have access to weapons that can strike something flying at 30,000 feet or more. Israel's flights were cancelled because a missile hit a house just a mile away from the airport, where planes taking off and landing are particularly vulnerable. That doesn't mean that we should stop flying everywhere someone has a stinger missile launcher and is crazy enough to point it at Delta flights. Unless the people waging war have something on par with the BUK rocket that shot down Malaysian Air Flight 17 you've got little to worry about when you're 30,000 feet in the air. And only actual states have those. No one needs to be afraid to fly over Afghanistan.</comment>


Ask HN: What Did You Learn At Your First Start-up? - <AUTHOR>

Hey everyone, my name is Kevin McCarthy and I co-founded a Boston-based publication called BostInnovation (http://bostinnovation.com/).
I want to put a series together called "What I Learned at My First Start-Up".  The premise is simple: have technically-minded folks talk about their first start-up, the technical challenges they faced, the success they had and the mistakes they learned from. I think there is a lot to learn from other's "war stories".
If anyone is interested, drop me an email at kevin at bostinnovation. <comment><USER2> In my first startup now. The biggest thing I have learned is the roughness of the emotional rollercoaster. When things are going well, it is an amazing rush. Bur when things are going wrong, the lows can be absolutely brutal. You NEED someone to provide support in these times. The best trait to have in a startup is persistence, because without it, you will want to give up during these times.

<comment><AUTHOR> couldn't agree more about persistence. Keeping an even keel during the ups and downs is very important as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm in my first startup right now, and we're but a few weeks old. I can say with absolute certainty that I'm constantly engaged in the act of learning. I seized this opportunity exactly to have a career where I must learn constantly about myriad topics in order to prosper.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sounds interesting. Maybe we can start a group for this with Skype handles instead</comment>


Russian cloud hosting provider starts accepting BTC and LTC - <AUTHOR> http://blog.selectel.ru/novyi-sposob-oplaty-bitcoin-i-litecoin/

<comment><USER2> Russian anonymous (I assume that's the meaning of the anonymous / vendetta maks) hosting made with a difficult to track payment system. I wonder what sorts of things that could be useful for?

Note: For the main site, switch out the .ru with .com to get the English version. You have to translate the blog.</comment>


New Zealand fuel shortage necessitates naval intervention - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-newzealand-fuel-shortage/new-zealand-calls-in-navy-to-beat-jet-fuel-shortage-before-vote-idUSKCN1BW0BE <comment><AUTHOR> Does anyone have technical details on what exactly occurred to damage the pipeline? Any other details about New Zealand's energy infrastructure would great for context as well.</comment>


Making Django CMS as easy to install as WordPress - <AUTHOR> https://www.django-cms.org/en/blog/2016/06/09/making-django-cms-as-easy-to-install-as-wordpress/ <comment><USER4> So, a reasonable question to ask is what can I recommend to non-technical people when they need a website quickly and inexpensively that won't make me feel like I'm setting them up to get owned?

Also what advice should I give to WordPress users to help them improve security, other than the rather useless and bratty "don't use wordpress lol" answer? I'm a security professional and I follow the constant stream of "lol WordPress exploit" articles, but proactive security measures for WordPress are a bit outside my usual enterprise infrastructure work.

<comment><USER5> I still, currently, recommend WordPress, despite its flaws.

I don't recommend doing ecommerce (directly) with it, or anything that could gather sensitive information, but for "just a website" with a bunch of cool stuff, WordPress is pretty much impossible to beat for the sheer amount of "cool stuff" you can do without ever writing code. The plugin ecosystem is tremendous.

The automated updates, so far, mostly stay ahead of the curve on exploits in the wild. We have a large pool of users to draw information from (thousands of servers running all manner of web apps), and we're far more likely to see exploits of systems that are harder to update; Drupal, Joomla, and especially a bunch of little apps that have tiny market share and small maintenance teams and cranky update processes. Having an easy and automated system for updates is just incredibly valuable for security.

What really needs to happen is everyone making web applications needs to start shipping a command line client for updates, that is safe/reliable enough to be run from cron. Best of both worlds: you don't need the app files to be write- able from the app itself (which is one of the big security concerns raised by this post) and you're always running the latest version even on systems that aren't being worked on daily. There's still the command line element to the problem, but it could be mostly automated away by control panels and installer tools (of which there are many).

There are a lot of forgotten CMS installations out there, and _those_ are the biggest security problem, IMHO.

<comment> throwaway-hn123 WordPress now has a pretty good command line tool: wp-cli [1]

You can run `wp-cli core update` to update the core WP files. It can also update plugins.

[1] [http://wp-cli.org/](http://wp-cli.org/)

<comment><USER6> Unfortunately this doesn't solve the problem that WordPress needs to be able to write to itself. It's game over once every skid in the world can pop a web shell in /var/www.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just to gather some of the other comments together, __if you 're a Django developer already, then you're used to more difficult deployments __.

So _anything_ that goes in the direction of easier (WordPress-style if you wish) deployments is going to be a big bonus for the Python/Django developers who are already committed to the language or the framework, and is going to be a big win for the service that can provide it.

I don't think I am giving away any of grand secrets if I say that that's what we're doing (and trying to do more of) - be a first choice for Django/Python developers.

For the Django developers, it doesn't _need_ to be as easy as WordPress - <USER2> just needs to be __easier than the other options __(which seem to begin with hammering bits together by hand until you have a working server, sometimes).

(That may not be enough to bring in users who may have gone for WordPress, but that's a further ambition.)

In the meantime, easiness really is important, which is why I think there is so much to learn from WordPress's success, but __ease-of-deployment is definitely not the only thing that 's important __.

For example, I don't think it's an unfair comment to say that one flaw WordPress has is security, and that Django/django CMS/Aldryn are much more secure, and that alone should be something people think about.

Or: there's more to hosting than dumping some files into a web server's directory. New deployment technologies such as Docker make it possible for a Django site built on Aldryn to be taken away and hosted somewhere else in minutes - being able to migrate your deployments if you wish to isn't an eye- catching advantage, but it's really valuable from a business point of view.

Or yet again, Docker makes it possible for a cloud hosting platform such as ours to be way more than just a hosting or deployment platform. It's also a development platform, with tools that integrate the desktop and the cloud and make the work of the experienced application developer easier, not just that of the non-technical person who wants a new site.

Anyway, that's a slightly long-winded way of saying that the lesson from WordPress is extremely valuable, but the way it applies to Django doesn't mean that we have to compete on WordPress's terms!

<comment><USER7> If you want an easy one click set up for Django, ansible's a much better approach than docker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't see why Django CMS will be more secure than WordPress or other way.

From a coding point of view, the more people works on it, the more chance the security issue will be noticed and fixed. Rails, Django or any framework in general always have security issues at some time.

The issue of WordPress is come from the easy to use. The ability to install plugin require write permission from the user that run WordPress.

Second, many WordPress plugin expose executable-php file in plugin folder that is invokeable via hitting directly that url.

So if Django CMS has that ability, allow downloading 3rd-code and run it, I'm not sure if it's more secure than WordPress.

WordPress is just as secure as any Rails or Django app. Bug happens, people fix.

<comment><USER9> > Rails, Django or any framework in general always have security issues at > some time.

No. Rails & Django have vast smaller attack surface than PHP's default.

<comment><USER10> Also, when was the last time you could compromise a Django install or even get remote code execution?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just because it serves a purpose doesnt mean it shouldn't be criticized.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you mean WordPress? Sure, of course it shouldn't escape critical scrutiny, but people actually _sneer_ at it (and PHP generally, and worse, at PHP programmers).

There's a lot to learn from WordPress and PHP.

<comment><USER12> Well, in fairness the WP codebase is horrific. I used to write everything in PHP, and once thought it a good idea to build a system in WP because it was user friendly. I needed some custom auth plugins and a custom theme.

Having fought with a poorly documented, inconsistent and generally badly- designed codebase for a few months, I'm not sure I'd agree that WP is undeserving of some sneering. It is one of the worst made things I have ever seen.

PS: I no longer develop in PHP, and haven't seen the WP codebase in about three years so perhaps it has improved.

<comment><USER13> It's worth underlining that the only people in the world that give a fuck if a codebase is a tangled mess are developers. Everyone else is solely interested in ease of use and budget concerns.

<comment><USER14> For anything non-trivial, a poorly written code base and/or poorly implemented database schema/layer becomes a liability, both in time and money.

<comment><USER15> It's a spectrum, where that liability is only a net negative past a certain point. Most WordPress users don't reach that point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Installation isn't even half the battle. _Updates_ are the killer thing in the Python world that even seasoned Django devs (raises hand) get wrong every so often.

Sure, you can `pip install -Ur requirements.txt` but will it work? Do I need to set up continuous integration? Testing servers? What happens when there are backwards incompatibilities between elements?

As things are you need a Django dev on staff to run a Django website. There is no dev-deploy-dump process that Wordpress "designers" get to enjoy. It's constant.

To really compete, Django (not just Django CMS, IMO) needs environment monitoring, testing and upgrading baked in. Many will argue that it's not its job —and they aren't wrong— but nobody else seems to be willing to do this in a way that anything but a seasoned programmer capable of running.

</comment><comment><USER17> No matter the author's contention, PHP apps are still much easier to install which is pretty much the sole reason for PHP's original and continuing popularity.

<comment><USER18> Exactly - every £2pcm shared hosting plan allows PHP, you need to actively look elsewhere for something "more exotic", and know what you should be looking for to begin with...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is a great contribution but it seems to be tied to a single vendor, and subject to the vendor's pricing.

This is fine, fair, good etc. It is not a criticism of the service, but when digital ocean offers a one-click install of django-cms or mezzanine etc, I think we'll know it is in the mainstream.

<comment><USER20> I love python, and Django is awesome, but to claim that the paid for Aldryn Cloud comes close to the WordPress.org 5 minute installation [1] is stretching it.

It's not just about the time taken it's about the almost complete flexibility of any web server anywhere.

The Aldryn Cloud is if anything similar to the WordPress.com setup where you just fill in a form and they handle the hosting for you.

But WordPress.org had their 5-minute installation sorted out 10 years ago.

N.B. That now along with the installation you have a complete choice of what language you want your entire system in. The amount of work that has been put into translation by WordPress and making sure that the entire rather huge ecosystem can be translated is phenomenal.

They have some pretty good automated system testing for security flaws in the plugins that are submitted. I've witnessed what happens when one fails. They send you what the problem is and how to replicated it.

Bare in mind all of this has been done through open source code with what I'd say is still done with companies that are run with very little greed. You won't find Mark Zuckerberg here answering questions on HN, but Matt Mullenweg has long been giving answers on here [2].

[1]: [http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress#Famous_5-Min...](http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress#Famous_5-Minute_Install)

[2]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=photomatt](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=photomatt)

<comment><USER19> You may have the advantage of having tried the Aldryn cloud.

Have you tried Mezzanine? I heard that was even easier to set up, and might be a better candidate for a transition to 1 click.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The difference in difficulty between Python/Django and WordPress is massive.

To do Django you have to know Python, which is a big assumption. For Wordpress you need basically zero programming knowledge.

Also compared to Flask, Django is much more complicated by making you adhere to their MVT (Model-View-Template).

<comment><USER22> To be fair, Django doesn't make you adhere to that pattern and you can use Django any way you please. Django has a lot more "in the box" than Flask and I will agree that I think it's more difficult to get started with.

<comment><USER21> Yea you are correct. Just saying when you read a Django tutorial and they say a "View is not a View", meaning that the Django View is different... that is not exactly newbie friendly.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not so sure, I understand Model-View-Template much better than I understand Model-View-Controller.

And for a real beginner, what a view is doesn't matter at all; what matters is how quickly they can start to feel they understand what they are doing with the system.

<comment><USER23> So your argument from personal knowledge is why something is easier or harder :)

Here's my experience: Having attempted to do semi-meaningful things in both a few years ago, I can tell you that hacking on wordpress and figuring out its internals (as a newbie in php) vs hacking in django (as a newbie in python) that the django experience was orders of magnitude more effort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Well if I'd known Hacker News was going to repunctuate my title I'd have done it differently!

<comment><USER24> But the title is "Making django CMS as easy to install as WordPress." Or did you just change it?

<comment><AUTHOR> It removed an exclamation mark!

<comment><USER25> And now you're trying to make up for it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I am a Python/Django developer. I am not a WordPress fan, but I am not above recommending it to people, provided that they understand what they are getting into. This is what I generally tell people...

\- WordPress as an 90/10 solution: You can get 90% of what you want for 10% of the effort, and you don't have to be a programmer to get most of the way. It is that last 10% that will suck 90% of your time, and it won't be pretty. In fact, it will probably be terrible and (as a developer) you will feel very icky about yourself when it is done. If you can be satisfied with getting close-to-but-not-quite what you want, then you will probably be happy with WordPress. If you are very particular about that last 10%, then you will probably be in for a world of pain. It may end-up costing just as much (or sometimes even be cheaper) to go with a custom/Django solution in those cases.

\- WordPress works well as a basic publishing platform. That was what it was designed for, and that is it's sweet spot. It isn't however ideally suited to application development. The further you head down the path of trying to make WordPress behave outside of the standard content publishing paradigm, the more painful and difficult it will become.

\- You absolutely have to stay on top of security and updates. If you aren't willing to spend that time, then you will end-up paying for all the time you saved when you set things up by having to deal with security fallout.

I recognize the appeal and place that WordPress has in the marketplace. I also recognize that people that need it are not my target clients. I have learned that my sweet spot for development is to fill the niche where WordPress isn't a great option.

</comment><comment><USER27> I refuse not to be snobbish about WordPress.

<comment><USER28> WordPress is a mess. It's a never ending source of problems. It'll save you some time upfront and then it'll cause many headaches later on.

It's just better to stay away from it. It's not about being snobbish. It's just pointing out the truth.

<comment><USER29> I have had the exact opposite experience. As long as you install one of the common security plugins (and not much else), then you're fine. And all those plugins do is ensure things like strong passwords and auth retry lockout.

A large part of the problem comes from the many, buggy plugins you can one click install from within wordpress.

<comment><USER30> "A large part of the problem comes from the many, buggy plugins you can one click install from within wordpress."

But isn't that the main benefit of Wordpress - the huge amount of plugins?

<comment><USER29> The main benefit of wordpress for most users, as I see it, is a way to get simple, user friendly CMS onto their own domain.

For me, it's for my handful of non technical users to be able to publish posts and have a central repo for sharing event information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I really want Aldryn to succeed. I have tried to test it out, and my major issue is documentation and not so clear UI.

For example, it's not clear to me how can I clone project I created on Aldryn and work on local. It's been about 10 minutes I am clicking around, still can't figure it out. Do I have to use Mac app? Can I work on as usual Django project on command line and just do git push when ready? Even docs here isn't clear to me [http://support.divio.com/hc/en- us/categories/200815715-Local...](http://support.divio.com/hc/en- us/categories/200815715-Local-development)

Btw, that django cms demo with Aldryn boilerplate is kick ass.

Edit: After lots of clicking, I found how to install aldryn client.

pip install aldryn-client

<comment><AUTHOR> If you're having any trouble getting to grips with it, don't hesitate to drop us a line - on our live help system if you wish: [https://www.divio.com/en/#intercom](https://www.divio.com/en/#intercom)

Otherwise, both [https://www.django-cms.org/en/blog/2016/02/16/build-a- websit...](https://www.django-cms.org/en/blog/2016/02/16/build-a-website- without-knowing-python-django-part-one/) and the Guided Tour [https://www.divio.com/en/academy/aldryn-cloud-django-cms- gui...](https://www.divio.com/en/academy/aldryn-cloud-django-cms-guided-tour/) will help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The only truth about Wordpress being so successful is its theme availability. Envato can for sure be responsible partially for its success.

It's not that Wordpress is good, or great or that much extensible. One could easily look for ExpressionEngine or Craft, if that would be the case.

But if you want a 1-click install, plus slap a 50$ theme on it, and your stuff to look pretty good, Wordpress is a viable solution.

However, if you want to customise stuff yourself, things become really dreadful very quickly. Anyone saying otherwise, hasn't done so.

All the other stuff, about any of its "goodness" as addressed here in the article, is basically the author doesn't knowing any better, what a real CMS is supposed to do.

<comment><USER33> > However, if you want to customise stuff yourself, things become really > dreadful very quickly. Anyone saying otherwise, hasn't done so.

Before I understood hooks & filters as publish-subscribe? sure. Afterwards? No way.

Do you want to know what's dreadful? Having a content team that needs to build 10k pages of content in a Rails site.

Do you know what's not dreadful? Having a content team that needs to build 10k pages of content on WordPress.

The latter can be supported by just me. The former? I don't even know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Do you see real economic opportunities in the Django-CMS space that will lead to people investing effort in it and improving it to the point where it is an option for the kind of people who use Wordpress?

<comment><AUTHOR> At the moment, the WordPress market economy is based largely on small margins over very large quantities. django CMS definitely isn't in that space, or even aiming for it, right now.

In the meantime though, we know that django CMS is a serious choice of Python/Django agencies and large corporations and other organisations.

You can see django CMS mentioned in job advertisements on a regular basis.

A surprising number of large corporate websites use django CMS.

There are numerous businesses in Europe and the USA that are django CMS specialists, building websites including CMS components for their clients, all based on django CMS.

django CMS is a free open-source product, but has paid developers working on it full-time.

Finally, it's sufficiently well-known and well-used to warrant the creation of Aldryn, a cloud deployment platform that was built around serving django CMS (even if now it also serves Django more widely).

Again, it's not the scale of economy that exists around WordPress (but then what is?), and there are many things that we hope will grow over the next few years, such as a thriving marketplace of not just free open-source but also paid-for addon applications, and even competitors to Aldryn.

So the answer is _yes_ , in a word.

<comment><USER34> Thanks for your response.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Can I use Aldryn on Linode?

Does it come up with full email installed?

Today you can go to GoDaddy, rent a VPS relatively cheap, fire-up a Wordpress install and be up and running with a website and full email service for a small business inside of one hour.

Attempting to achieve the same with Phython/Django/Django-CMS on something like a Linode is an exercise of frustration.

I love Python/Django yet, more often than not, I have no choice but to point people towards Wordpress.

...and then there's the Python 2.x/3.x mess...

</comment><comment><USER36> Vanilla WordPress may be the wrong target when trying to design for ease of use. Page builders have superseded the TinyMCE "visual" page/post editor.

Beaverbuilder is the most talked about modern page builder at the WordPress meetups I attend.

Try to build a homepage layout like airbnb.com with your tutorial and again with beaverbuilder. You will find a huge technical difference.

</comment><comment><USER37> I know both systems and will not fight for one or the other. I will try to summarize the most annoying points in both systems.

Many things in WordPress are brilliant, and none of the Django content management systems got that right. Every WordPress user can very quickly learn to actually manage their content with taxonomies (categories, tags, or custom made ones), and then build e.g. a menu or special pages for a category very easy out of that categorizations. This is brilliant.

Also the hook system is great, so easy to add and combine pieces of code, one of the reasons for that enormous amount of plugins (of course not all of them are of good quality, ahem).

Also the extremely easy extension via custom post types and custom fields allows to build a lot of things very quickly. Try to build dynamic models with Django - a major limitation that is seldom talked about, but very important. This is one of the most boneheaded Django dead-ends that I have hit - how can a system that is build for dynamic content generation make it so hard to dynamically define and generate models? There are some approaches, but you are getting into 'fight-the-system-mode' with all of them, because that boneheadism is build into the basic design of Django.

Of course, the code base of WordPress is very old and a constant source of trouble, if you are depressed, go and read some WP code, you will have fun, I swear! But it must be said that it is really great how the WP devs keep up backwards compatibility - you can run and update the system for years without worries, this is very important for a cms!

Django devs did not understand that. So many people are lagging behind with updating their Django apps / projects, because the django devs missed this most important point! So many changing things, stupid little things, but breaking and mutating like a radioactive godzilla, you see the results in a universe of incompatible django apps. They missed completely that it is a good thing to "never break user space", really a problem here. Do not change the API! Thanks god they started to do that LTS thing now, so there is some hope now that serious enterprise business will take a look at Django.

Luckily WordPress now has automatic updates, so admins do not have to panic so much. Biggest problem, of course, is that annoying dependency on MySQL, I hate it, and I also hate the catastrophic generation of sql queries - and do not even try to look at the mysql query log when you install the super-bonehead- ultra plugin by mister uberhaxor!

But caching is mandatory anyway, or even better, export to static pages. Do not even put that WP on the internet - let authors write to an isolated environment and export all the pages into a static cache after updates. Do not allow comments.

If only all these great WP ideas were implemented on top of Django, that would be perfect.

But all the existing Django CMS are extremely far away from the easy WordPress usability. Like WP was made by artists and all the Django CMS made by bureaucrats. Wagtail has some future, but is still missing many, many features, also I see some problems with the content model, having to define a new model for each new type of content will not work in the long run - <USER3> are hitting that annoying Django design limitation here - it is not a framework build for dynamic models (eat that absurdism!).

There must be something inherently wrong with Django that it seems not to be possible to build a feature-rich CMS that tops WP easily - everything that exists is extremely beyond the state of the art, unfortunately, and I wonder if that has some reason connected to Django. Any PHP project would have millions of plugins after such a long time (working and compatible) - meanwhile you can be happy if you find a Django app that works out of the box with the latest Django release, lots of bitrot. Even the demo apps sometimes do not work, try to run the mezzanine 'drum' hacker news clone. This must be a management problem, but I do not understand these things, however that problem exists and it is annoying. You are riding high he Django train, but fall deep with non-working apps all the time, this can be even worse than the WP plugin hell.

WordPress is technically inferior, but there are so many brilliant ideas in there.

Django, technically superior in any way, still misses anything like WP, none of the CMS come close to the WordPress experience.

In other words: there is still room for innovation!

Just compare for yourself, looking at any of the Django CMS in 2016 will be like a time travel back to 2010.

Today I hope that some people will re-implement WordPress with Elixir and the great Phoenix framework. The Django Channels project will not be enough to survive that.

<comment><USER38> This is a fascinating analysis. I'm the CTO of the agency behind the Wagtail CMS ([https://wagtail.io](https://wagtail.io)) which you reference. People like NASA, Google, Peace Corps, PBS run sites on Wagtail but I'd use WordPress for my friend's 5 page site because:

\- < 5 minutes to organise cheap hosting \- automatic updates \- zillions of themes \- someone else can fix it when it goes wrong

I hope Daniele and his colleagues at Aldryn will help with quick cheap Django hosting (they do Wagtail too!). But I'm not sure that Wagtail or Django CMS will ever be the right choice for this use-case. Of course you _could_ build a WordPress equivalent in Django, using postmeta-style key-value tables that abuse relational database theory but allow plugins to define their own content types, and maybe someone should. Our effort is going into building a CMS which helps implementers of non-trivial sites do the 'right thing': keep their content structured, clean, related, filterable. Create once publish everywhere!

There's a lot to learn from WordPress but I don't think 'dynamic models' are the answer for situations where you have more than one developer (there's no guaranteed parity between developer and production environments) or lots of relations (postmeta-style tables have ugly joins, weak integrity checks, poor performance).

<comment><USER37> It would be fantastic if Wagtail had anything similar like the WP taxonomy - content organization idea, this is the only part missing on the way to a real WP killer.

This is not only about ui - giving users the power to build menus via the ui is great, but the real thing that happens is that people have a great way to actually _manage their content_ - for an experienced WP user it is easy to add a new category menu, add some special section for a limited time or completely restructure a site, etc., this is possible because of how they implemented the usage of taxonomies and how you can structure your site with menus and category pages based on that taxonomies or pull the content with a simple WPQuery. This is very powerful!

People need categories, e.g. (not me): [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/wagtail/category%...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/wagtail/category%7Csort:relevance/wagtail/5bzMnky6Avo/4v9e0u1DBAAJ)

If the answers in this thread are right and it is only possible to implement this usecase with custom model classes for each category, then this is a serious design limitation that should be considered. I hope there is another way doing that and I simply missed it, if there is, please make a blog post about it, I beg!

I played with django tag-it and maybe there is a good way to combine it with this wagtailmenu [https://github.com/rkhleics/wagtailmenus](https://github.com/rkhleics/wagtailmenus)

It's about the ideas. I do not want to discuss WP vs. Django on the level of technical details, I understand the context, I understand the code and I know where WP is used and where Django and such a discussion is nonsense.

BTW I would _love_ to use Wagtail for all projects, but easy handling of catregories (lots of them) is very important for long term content segmentation.

Thanks for your attention!

<comment><USER38> Most of the sites we build on Wagtail use taxonomies / categorisation, either with a foreign key to categories defined as snippets, or with custom model classes for each page type, as you describe. You're right that Wagtail has no 'native' equivalent of WP's Categories, and perhaps that's a mistake. You're also right to focus on ideas and usage over technical details; we fall into this trap too easily.

I'm very interested in talking more about this, but without derailing the topic. Please email me on my first name at torchbox.com.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Does the advent of docker containers make creation and deployment of more complex systems as easy as wordpress?

(I'm asking, I don't have any real experience of docker)

<comment><USER33> I'm a dev who came from the Rails world to a primarily Wordpress one in my current gig.

Wordpress still has some pain points for me (schemaless database) that are only half-solved for me with plugins (mainly ACF Pro and Post To Post Links) and a lot of code. I've basically built a request router and ~MVC into Wordpress several times over, but not something I'm satisfied with enough to release to public.

Most of the practices that we're used to elsewhere can be applied in the Wordpress space.

Our build process relies on GitHub, Composer, Satis, CircleCI and Ansible (and we use Homestead locally). We use modern hosts who are amenable to git deployments so we don't have to use sftp. It took some work to get to here but it's easier. Honestly it's far easier than most of what I've had to deal with in the Rails space.

Wordpress, for the right kind of sites, can be great to develop on. Truly great. And it's always great for content creators. I have yet to see another CMS deliver half that experience for content creators. Please, show me one -- so that I don't _HAVE_ to use Wordpress anymore.

This gig has been interesting though. I see it as an opportunity to bring saner practices into the WordPress space. If anybody is going to LoopConf and wants to have a beer and a chat, let me know.

Keep the plugins to a minimum and you'll have a great time.

<comment><USER40> "I've basically built a request router and ~MVC into Wordpress"

That sounds really interesting and something I think a lot of devs would be interested in.

<comment><USER33> I agree. A lot of folks have worked on the latter but I haven't seen much of the former and had to build it myself.

In both cases what I did was highly specific to the spec of the WordPress site. I've yet to come up with something generic enough and well-built enough that I'm comfortable sharing. That's a problem with the WordPress ecosystem in general I think.

The key moment to understanding Wordpress was realizing that its use of hooks and filters are the publish-subscribe pattern. You can just hook the `parse request` action and then do whatever the hell you like as long as you make sure that the `query` (and ultimately `wp` object) that comes out at the end of the process doesn't have something unexpected in it (tricky!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Wordpress really screwed up by having a schema-less database. Everything in the database is a key-value pair. This means actual relational operations now need to be performed in PHP, instead of letting the RDBMS handle it. This significantly slows down the CMS, and so you have 1-2 second page response times.

Meanwhile, my Django sites have response times in the 10-20ms range. (And that's without caching.)

<comment><USER42> "Everything is a key-value pair" is flat out wrong[1,2]: There are four key- value tables (commentmeta, postmeta, termmeta and usermeta), but most of the meat of Wordpress is stored in regular tables.

[1] [https://github.com/ronaldbradford/schema/blob/master/wordpre...](https://github.com/ronaldbradford/schema/blob/master/wordpress.sql)

[2] [https://codex.wordpress.org/images/2/25/WP4.4.2-ERD.png](https://codex.wordpress.org/images/2/25/WP4.4.2-ERD.png)

[EDIT: Corrected myself about the number of KV tables]

<comment><USER43> if you're just using WP as a blog engine only, with basic functionality, you're fine. that's what it was built for, and shines.

wp_options is a key/value table, and seems to be abused a lot.

storing "transient" data in wp_options - what's up with that? why not at least have a 'transient' table, separate from the table that stores my ... options?

and... when you've got plugin systems that store everything in postmeta... it's hard to do "normal" relational queries. woocommerce seems to be a good example of this - order info in postmeta?

"find all orders in tennessee with more than $10 tax"

can only be done with multiple self-joins on wp_postmeta.

Perhaps they shouldn't have built it that way, but in my experience most plugin authors use what's provided, and what's provided makes them jump through hoops to do basic stuff, and is not well suited for larger scale apps (but people get suckered in to it anyway because it's "easy to get started"). Who do you blame for these decisions/mistakes? WP? Plugin authors? End users?

<comment><USER42> I see your point and share your pain about key-value tables in SQL systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> So I critiqued the Aldryn Cloud solution and Django CMS's approach on the Disqus comments on their blogpost and it was swiftly rejected. This product is far from the values of open source Wordpress is built on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your comment (if it's the one) was simply waiting to be approved in Disqus moderation.

We won't reject comments unless they are offensively rude, spam, wildly off- topic or otherwise significantly problematic.

We can withstand a little bit of criticism...

<comment><USER44> Got it. I saw that a newer comment was approved so I assumed mine was rejected. Apologies for that! I think the newer comment that was approved was probably just from an account that wasn't moderated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Being snobbish about WordPress is like being snobbish as a Windows user.</comment>


The Soul of French Invention - <AUTHOR> http://craftsmanship.net/the-soul-of-french-invention/ <comment><USER2> That's a great museum. See the museum's actual site.[1] Better than the article.

[1] [http://www.arts-et-metiers.net](http://www.arts-et-metiers.net)

</comment><comment><USER3> Another great place rarely visited in Paris is the Musée Cernuschi - a far east Asian art museum. [http://cernuschi.paris.fr/en/home](http://cernuschi.paris.fr/en/home)

Their permanent exhibition has some pretty rare early stuff (mostly from grave-robbings) and their current exhibition is a review of a southern Chinese painting movement that became part of the international network of the Nationalist resistance during the 20th century, on loan from Hong Kong. This is rare stuff to see outside of Taiwan, and probably rare in Hong Kong these days.

Another sometimes amazing spot is the Institut du Monde Arabe, which had a brilliant exhibition on the Orient Express train lines last year. [http://www.imarabe.org/](http://www.imarabe.org/)

For those focused on design, note also the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney, Australia. [http://maas.museum/powerhouse- museum](http://maas.museum/powerhouse-museum)

</comment><comment><USER4> I have wanted to visit this museum ever since reading Umberto Eco's description of it in Foucault's Pendulum.

</comment><comment><USER5> Lots more photos in related story at same site: [http://craftsmanship.net/hidden-wonders-musee-des-arts-et- me...](http://craftsmanship.net/hidden-wonders-musee-des-arts-et-metiers/)</comment>


Gemini PDA Android and Linux keyboard mobile device - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gemini-pda-android-linux-keyboard-mobile-device-phone/#/ <comment><USER2> Really like the look of this. Need to know whether it'll get software support. Also nervous about backing it, anybody know any history of the guys developing it?</comment>


Show HN: Inside – The network of email newsletters - <AUTHOR> http://inside.com <comment><USER2> 3rd time's a charm.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12531079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12531079)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12533650](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12533650)

<comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=inside.com](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=inside.com) shows that this is actually the _11th time_ that awwstn has submitted inside.com as a "Show HN".

<comment><AUTHOR> As far as I know, they started allowing duplicate URLs to encourage people to give it another shot – but maybe I tried too many times.

I'm sorry to have offended you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks cool. You may want to include the 'about' link in the header (not just footer) since you have essentially infinite scroll, and as a first-time visitor I want some more context.

<comment><USER5> Good feedback !

<comment><USER6> Jason, I've been a big fan of your work ever since Mahalo days. Love what you and Lon are doing with Inside.com. Ping me if you ever want to discuss tech strategy, I think your format is uniquely well-suited to a machine learning approach with a couple modifications.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As others have mentioned, getting to the footer links with infinite scrolling is less than ideal.

More generally, I disagree with "Email provides an excellent channel to re- align those incentives. If we can convince you to subscribe to one of our newsletters, we have the chance to deliver something great to you on a regular basis." Email has never been a good way to consume news. I assume that providing RSS feeds would break your business model, but it would result in a much more consumer-friendly product.

</comment><comment><USER4> Also, unlike many "Show HN"s, it should probably be noted that this is not some random side project - the CEO is Jason Calacanis

<comment><USER5> I'm responsible for 5% of the new inside -- our team did heavy lifting!

I am interested in people's feedback of course!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Really like these. Been subscriber to Inside since it started and it's a fantastic summary of the daily news.

I've started reading Inside Security and it's a good overview of news for someone not in the security industry.

<comment><USER9> Same here. I think I started with the first public issue and it has become a habit I enjoy having. Seconding Inside Security as very good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Infinite scroll. A Footer. Choose one.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is great in terms of discovery, but I can't find the unsubscribe option? Maybe i'm overlooking something - would appreciate anyone point it out. Unsubscribing is probably a big of a pain point as discovery when it comes to newsletters for me.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, they put all the unsubscribe options inside the actual emails. It seems like they're using all the best-practices stuff for that. It's probably just growth hacking/simplicity. The unsubscribe is available, but they want you to do it from inside the email after you've had a chance to look at one first.

(Disclosure: I have no relationship to Inside.com. I'm just a subscriber that is moderately pleased with their concept. The emails are useful. I'm trying to break my "check Reddit/HN every 5 minutes" habit.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like the concept. Waiting until a tipping point (subscriber count or sponsorship) before launching a new newsletter is a good idea. Also thought the simple touch of consistently noting the frequency of each newsletter was good.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you get your employer to provide an ergonomic workstation? - <AUTHOR> I recently started working for a new company. My friend got me hired, and the work is ok.
They of course have a giant open space office, and we're sitting next to each other on very long tables. They're part of a much larger, profitable company, but this spin-off business unit operates like a 500 people independent "lean" start-up.
The office seats they issue are either plain chairs (like dining chairs, no arm rests, nothing adjusts) or reclining padded seats (can't disable reclining, very poor back support). The desks aren't height adjustable (they're too high), it's a fight to get an external monitor, keyboard, trackball, monitor stand.
I can't work hunched on my laptop all day, it just hurts too much the next few days. There is no health plan to cover the physio consults because of the pain or an HSA I could use to expense the equipment.
I don't want to change jobs because aside from the ergonomic aspect, I'm fine with it. I don't want to cause too much waves either out of respect for the friend who got me the job and because I need the income.
For people who have been in a similar situation, how did you get your employer to provide and ergonomic workstation with properly adjusted desk, adjustable office chair, and the required peripheral to not destroy your health while "changing the world?" <comment><USER2> If they can't spend $30 to buy you a chair to preserve your body you should not work with them. They don't deserve that you destroy your own body for their own profit.

</comment><comment><USER3> Get a doctor's note saying you need one due to back issues or something.

</comment><comment><USER4> Or buy your own chair.</comment>


The World Without Us - <AUTHOR> http://www.worldwithoutus.com/did_you_know.html <comment><USER2> i don't know how true it is, but i loved the story.

at first the statements seem random, or rather i didn't find any emotional meaning to them.

then i felt warmth and comfort. the trees and forests grow back. maybe humans haven't damaged the earth beyond repair.

finally, the timeline expands beyond human significance. that's beautiful.

nicely done with the mouseovers, too.

<comment><USER3> No matter what how much damage we do to this planet, we are still the only species who have a chance of making it off the planet before it smashes into the sun.

You can say what you want about us and how beautiful nature is, but in the end there are thousand of species that can fly but only one that can play the guitar, thousands of species that can walk, but only one that invented the car, a million species that breath but only one that build a ship to sail under the waters...

The point of all this is that the human species really is something special.

<comment><USER4> "we are still the only species who have a chance of making it off the planet"

For now. Personally, I hope that, if (and only if) we humans do destroy ourselves, enough life remains for something else to evolve and have a shot.

<comment><USER5> It will be much harder if it's not us. We've taken a lot of the easy resources, and many of them won't come back before the sun eats the Earth. (Some will, many won't.) Hard to build a technological civilization with no copper deposits left. It can (probably) be done, but it will be orders of magnitude slower.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Neat, apart from all the factual errors. Barn roofs being long gone after ten years? Garden vegetables "reverting to wild strains" after twenty years? Unlikely.

</comment><comment><USER7> He left out:

"Immediately: None of these events would be judged positively or negatively based on human ethics."

<comment><USER8> There's also a rather large amount of anti-nuclear hysteria in there.

All plants would have 'burned or melted down'? Sure, apart from the 100% of plants that weren't in the middle of a dangerous test with all the safety systems turned off at the exact moment that the operators disappeared.

The rest would just go cold and sit there (pretty safely, baring an earthquake) until erosion broke down the concrete containment building.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I know this is supposed to be beautiful and poetic, and I do see a bit of that. But then I also remember two things:

1) The thinking behind this is essentially religious in nature.

2) While growing up, many of us were bombarded with similar messages in school starting from a very young age. Very little, if any, attention was given to the idea that humans on Earth might be more than a corrupting influence on nature.

Who knows, maybe they could even be right. But the manner in which the message is disseminated makes me very suspicious.

</comment><comment><USER10> On the surface, this is a sobering reflection on our impermanence. But, I think this evokes the more beautiful idea that, in all likelihood, the world will not be without us.

Humans will be able to carry on through whatever epic tragedies we organize or in whatever nightmarish environments we concoct.

Our defining characteristic is adaptability. We are like massively clever cockroaches.

The world may be too much with us, but it'll have to make do.

</comment><comment><USER11> Using flash was so overkill for this. It could have easily been just an image or html.

<comment><USER12> Maybe, he did fit a lot of information into a more compact space by using Flash.

<comment><USER11> The sad thing is that I have seen this all in the past as a single image that shows up on reddit every once in a while. Turning into a flash pos just wastes my bandwidth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very beautiful, touching and poetic.</comment>


We Tracked the Illegal Shipment of Sarin Precursor from Belgium to Syria - <AUTHOR> https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/case-studies/2018/04/19/methodology-tracked-illegal-shipment-sarin-precursor-belgium-syria/ <comment><USER2> (2018)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you design your CV's? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN,<p>I want to redesign my CV but I am no designer and have a hard time being satisfied with my own attempts.
Are there any services / template sites you can recommend? <comment><USER2> I recommend using LaTeX. [https://www.sharelatex.com/templates/cv-or- resume](https://www.sharelatex.com/templates/cv-or-resume)

</comment><comment> Warewolf-ESB I really recommend keeping your CV simple, but informative. Most people will scan it and check for the correct skills and experience, years at each job, salary information and reasons for leaving. Too much info on your CV can likely lead to it being overlooked. It's your first impression on with a prospective employer - it's really worth getting right. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't redesign it.

Rewrite it.

For resumes, words > visuals. *

* Unless you're a designer. Even then keep it simple.

</comment><comment><USER4> You can check out services like resumeonk. These people have got nice ready made templates.

<comment><USER5> [https://www.resumonk.com/](https://www.resumonk.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Try Nemcv.com. There is only one design (candidates often hate this), because it is designed for the way that companies like to see candidates.

It allows you to focus on the content, not the style of your CV

<comment><USER7> Do you really submit your cv with a photo? Never happens in UK - and you're actually told not to.

<comment><USER6> Who tells you not to submit a photo? The hiring manager?

<comment><USER8> It's just not normal to include a photo.

Photos as part of hiring carry risks for the company. Companies must not use some information (age, sex, disabilities, etc) in their hiring decisions and photos can divulge some of that information.

<comment><USER9> Photos can strongly suggest things like race and gender, but those and other prohibited axes for discrimination by most employers can also be strongly suggested b names, names of schools, names of particular awards/achievements, and names of past employers and jobs (particularly, e.g., when those employers are the kind that are permitted certain forms of discrimination that is generally prohibited.) Further, photos don't provide indication of anything that the prospective employer wouldn't get from an in person interview, which is a common step in the hiring process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://jsonresume.org/](https://jsonresume.org/) has a few good templates

</comment><comment><USER11> I just use LinkedIn's export to PDF function.

</comment><comment><USER12> if you have an ipad there is a pre-installed app there with some nice templates</comment>


Why Bitcoin Crashed and Why It Will Crash Again - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidpetersson/2018/12/10/why-bitcoin-crashed-and-why-it-will-crash-again/#6dd1886d48ca <comment><USER2> Article is so dated, he talks about bitcoin cash but not SV.</comment>


Nimble - a tiny functional js and async flow control library - <AUTHOR> http://caolan.github.com/nimble/

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, it took me like 3 attempts to post this link, sorry if I spammed anyone :(

<comment><USER2> how does this fit in the scheme of things with regard to your async lib??

<comment><AUTHOR> The async lib will still be developed, and will aim to be as comprehensive as possible.

This library was created because I often include both async and underscore in client-side projects, which seems a bit overkill when every kb matters.

I've also looked into combining the features of async with underscore in the past. However, I don't believe its possible without backward incompatible changes, or a separate API (one for sync one for async). Nimble is an experiment in how a combined API might work, and uses some interesting tricks regarding function arity to support something closer to the standard map/filter/reduce, while still being convenient to use with callbacks.

For example, you can do the following:

_.map(arr, function (val, callback) { ... }, main_callback);

but you can also do this:

_.map(arr, function (val, key, arr, callback) { ... }, main_callback);

And it will still work as expected.

<comment><USER2> thanks - i really like what you've done w/ async so am excited about this too : )</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Where did dogs come from? It turns out we don't really know - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/where-did-dogs-come-from-it-turns-out-we-dont-really-know/ <comment><USER2> The article doesn't mention any of this research, but DNA evidence seems to suggest that dogs were first domesticated in China 11,000 to 16,000 years ago:

<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/science/08dogs.html>

<http://www.archaeology.org/1009/dogs/>

</comment><comment><USER3> An interesting viewpoint, although I think the genetic evidence goes against it:

[http://newguinea-singing-dog- conservation.org/Tidbits/Origin...](http://newguinea-singing-dog- conservation.org/Tidbits/OriginOfTheDog.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER4> If you see a painting of a dog in a rock, you will surely think it was painted by somebody. If I said that the molecules where evolved during billions and billions of years and formed the painting you would say for sure that I am crazy. Now, the dog is much more complex than the dog painting and if I say that the dog evolved during billions and billions of years, you should say that I am totally nuts to think this, because for sure somebody MADE the dog!!! Yes, God CREATED the dog!

<comment><USER5> Interesting conclusion[0]. Mine was that people created the dog as we know it, and it's manifold breeds, by domesticating the wolf.

[0] Standard sarcasm on internet disclaimer.

<comment><USER4> How do you create a dog? Breeding is different than creating.</comment></comment></comment>


Half-life of software as a service, services - <AUTHOR> http://shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com/2018/11/28/half-life-of-software-as-a-service-services/ <comment><USER2> This was an unexpected and exciting use of the data for killedbygoogle.com. Glad that our open source project could be used this way!

<comment><AUTHOR> I imagine Gmail can't be killed off because it's too big and too many people rely on it, so pulling the plug on it would be like killing a part of the Internet's infrastructure?

<comment><USER3> What? No. Would be very easy for them. Just start with premium features and they're halfway there.</comment></comment></comment>


California freelancers: What to do if a client tells you to form an LLC - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/article/California-freelancers-What-to-do-if-a-client-15039926.php <comment><USER2> You form an LLC or you will most likely lose the client. No ridiculous law and force a client to keep you.

</comment><comment><USER3> We stopped considering contractors from California. We will wait for the law to be clarified or repealed.

<comment><USER4> What does your company do, and what are your alternatives in the meantime?

<comment><USER5> Alternatives? There are 49 other states and the rest of the world, for starters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Horrible website, ad popup, when i dismissed it all the text turned an unreadable light gray

</comment><comment><USER7> Correct link [https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/article/Califo...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/article/California- freelancers-What-to-do-if-a-client-15039926.php)

<comment><USER8> Changed from [https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/California- fre...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/California-freelancers- What-to-do-if-a-client-15039926.php) now. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Visa to Offer Person-to-Person Payments - <AUTHOR> http://www.cio.com/article/677255/Visa_to_Offer_Person_to_Person_Payments <comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2335049></comment>


Show HN: Nurture – Keep in touch with automatic reach out reminders - <AUTHOR> https://nurtureapp.co.uk <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, my friends and I have always struggled to stay in touch with friends and family consistently due to "business" or "laziness", despite caring for them.

So we made Nurture - a simple phone app that checks WhatsApp, Messenger, etc and reminds you to reach out to the people you care about if you haven't already.

We are looking to help people who find it difficult to regularly keep in touch by also having features such as: -pre-scheduled messages -access to a relationship coach -notes on contacts

Worth mentioning that we hate our data being sold ourselves - so have clearly stated that we'll never share user data / sell it. Our only source of revenue will be subscriptions from premium users.

We'd love to see if this helps you with your relations, and hear any feedback you may have!

Thanks! Stephen</comment>


Ask HN: Trazec claims a 900% GPU boost, is it real? - <AUTHOR>

Trazec is a startup company, they claim the invention of a new algorithm to speed up the GPU based rendering by 900%. http://trazec.com <comment><USER2> Their home page say "GPU speed increase of 66%." Did it change since you looked at it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Says 900% in this video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsW1ShgOOQ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsW1ShgOOQ8)

I've downloaded their "Demo 2", which I suppose it to include their BC-8 magic, and tested it with fraps, I got the same exact FPS using the original demo (called Rigid Gems).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> seems like bullshit to me.

site says nothing about their secret sauce

</comment><comment><USER4> Are they running a crowdfunding campaign?

An aside:

For those people who claim miracles on kickstarter, indiegogo, et al. If the ideas were sound, why not license the idea to people who know the manufacturing and science already?

The odds seem higher it's an amateur with little idea of the science, and perhaps an idea already thrown around by an engineer at these firms.

Not to pick on the wishful gullibility of the masses to get entranced by well- made ad, or individual entrepreuners with severe Dunning-Kruger naivete, but perhaps "crowdsourced" investors should at least be backed by a reputable subject in the field and a background check.</comment>


[Video] Walt Mossberg Reviews the Surface Windows 8 Pro - <AUTHOR> http://live.wsj.com/video/mossberg-reviews-the-surface-windows-8-pro/593D9E11-170F-4C76-B4D9-618DEAB439C6.html#!593D9E11-170F-4C76-B4D9-618DEAB439C6

<comment><USER2> I was startled when sound came out of my computer as I followed this link. By the Hacker News guidelines, "If you submit a link to a video or pdf, please warn us by appending [video] or [pdf] to the title"

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

helps users know what to expect from submitted links. I would rather have read a write-up of Mossberg's opinions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for bringing this to notice. I have updated the title.</comment></comment>


Autonomy: The Right to be Wrong - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ard_adam/autonomy-youre-doing-it-wrong-b1eda593d726 <comment><USER2> Peopleware is an absolute classic. I stumbled across it when I found Joel Spolsky's Book Reviews page back in 2002:

[http://new.joelonsoftware.com/navLinks/fog0000000262.html](http://new.joelonsoftware.com/navLinks/fog0000000262.html)

If you want to be a good programmer, you'll do yourself a service by reading pretty much everything on that page.

In general there's wisdom in classic books and software development is no exception: you can learn a ton about becoming great from books written 20+ years ago.

</comment><comment> s-shellfish It's honestly easier to just try to balance both perspectives - have empathy for people unless you want to destroy yourself by judging everyone that's not you until you slowly turn into everyone you think about because thinking about everything becomes all consuming in ways oneself can not control in entirety.

And, see management of work as a system of components that have some expected functionality in behavior and some mutability for changing.

Not everything is a machine or a system. People aren't machines, the workplace doesn't have to be a sterile system to be controlled with a unidirectional purpose. People need to see eye to eye sometimes, and competing egos, salaries, titles, etc can be blinding. Everyone can be smart. Everyone can be a genius. Emotional variances in pedantry.

> Compulsion transforms good advice and helpful training into commandments > that make the way forward increasingly difficult for well meaning employees.

Trust is a funny word.

Being wrong is fine. Forcing someone to always be the one who is wrong because, why?

Software. Software is often focused on code working. Right, or wrong, that's what the computer says at the end of the day. There's a middle, a balance, when it comes to understanding people. Managers in technology shouldn't treat people like they are computer programs. But that's what it does. It moves.</comment>


We All Live on Campus Now - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/we-all-live-on-campus-now.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nymag%2Fintelligencer+%28Daily+Intelligencer+-+New+York+Magazine%29 <comment><AUTHOR> _And, sure enough, the whole concept of an individual who exists apart from group identity is slipping from the discourse._

Not sure if that's really happening or if it's just used as a rhetorical weapon.

 _The goal of our culture now is not the emancipation of the individual from the group, but the permanent definition of the individual by the group. We used to call this bigotry. Now we call it being woke. You see: We are all on campus now._</comment>


Erlang and High-Scale System Software - <AUTHOR> http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/CommentView,guid,ca94e6d3-5627-4d8f-b3e0-6d90c198fce0.aspx

<comment><USER2> I like his argument that Erlang's concurrency is a secondary benefit. The main one is _reliability_.

Erlang's price of inefficiency ( _tax_ ) is affordable with today's faster machines.

</comment><comment><USER3> _JITed languages typically don't perform as well as statically compiled languages_

Did he mean to put the word _statically_ there?</comment>


Another telco giant invests in the "3D Wall" creator Cooliris - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/limyunghui/2012/06/18/another-telco-giant-ntt-docomo-invests-in-silicon-valley-3d-wall-creator-cooliris/

<comment><USER2> I used to think Cooliris was interesting, but they appear to be stagnant.</comment>


Show HN: Polyphony – A realtime collaborative text editing lib for web/mobile - <AUTHOR> http://polyphony-ot.com

<comment><USER2> I'm trying to trip it up by placing the cursor at the same point on two different computers and typing a different letter on each at the same time -- and I can't. Stays consistent across machines. Nice work!!</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a place where all developer conferences are listed? - <AUTHOR>

As the title says, I'd like to know if there is a place where the upcoming dev conferences are listed? Preferably the list can be filtered based on keywords, country/area etc.<p>Thanks. <comment><USER2> The answer to any question of the form "is there a place where all _____ are listed" is almost always "no," approaching "hell no" as the topic gets more general. There are lists that _claim_ to be all-inclusive, but they never are, and they get less so as time progresses.

I will be attending an excellent conference later this month, but I seriously doubt you're asking about massively parallel bioinformatics. You might have better luck specifying the technology area you're interested in.

</comment><comment><USER3> Lanyrd does't have all but,,,

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I did not about Lanyrd. ([http://lanyrd.com/](http://lanyrd.com/))

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I tried to build a startup around that idea once. Didn't fly.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am suprised that there is no such thing. Not even a curated web page. Or maybe my Google-fu is not as good.

<comment><USER4> It was too labor intensive. One would need to establish relationships with almost every event venue in order to catch a significant number of tech events.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Recommendo – Get personalized recommendations from the people you trust - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/recommendo/id932405753?mt=8

<comment><AUTHOR> Free mobile recommendation app turning your friends into your remote eyes and ears on the hunt for great brands, products and events.</comment>


Ask HN: Which algorithm are( or, were) you mesmerized about? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Not exactly algorithm but I was smitten by Union data structure.

The sheer simplicity of it left me in awe.</comment>


Ask HN: Privacy During Emergency Situations - <AUTHOR> In situations like the Coronavirus outbreak, data companies like Google have enormous amounts of useful data; user locations, contact lists, familial associations etc.
One can easily imagine Google having the ability to provide the CDC with localized  information where given a list of infected individuals, provide a list of high risk individuals that should be contacted.
FB may have the same capability.
Is this a reasonable idea, or are there not immediately obvious drawbacks to using data this way? <comment><USER2> The upside to this is obvious. There are very large downsides, though. For instance, the public and the government (at least in the US) has a strong tendency to overreact to things like this, so the people on such lists may be subjected to what amounts to punitive actions for no good reason.

Hopefully, my efforts to evade, confuse, and hide from spying companies like Google and FB have been effective enough that I wouldn't appear on such lists regardless, though.</comment>